


Pas de deux

by leechailatten



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Light Angst, M/M, ballet dancer Xiaojun, eboy hendery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leechailatten/pseuds/leechailatten
Summary: Hendery was an eboy and Dejun did ballet.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun, minor mention of Qian Kun/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Pas de deux

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not stand in favour of cheating under any circumstance. Guys, don't cheat on your partners, that's ugly.

"Just breath more correctly" commanded Dejun. His tone was steady, but at the next gesture, his hand traveled lightly to touch his chin and make him look higher. "It'll allow your body to loosen up and get smoother"

As he looked up to see himself in the mirror, Hendery tried to keep his balance in the fifth position with all the distracting flies of his teacher around him, breathing in to fill his lungs as he had requested him to do. 

His eyes closed as well, but more than a reason for concentration, he was trying to keep his rushed heartbeat under control because there was no way of being so nervous because of a simple jump.

Although Dejun's hands caressing his hips gently weren't helping him with the exercise. 

He is really bad at the ballet thing, and he is not really improving a lot, no matter if he had been going to the classes for almost two entire months already. 

Well, it's not like he cares too much about his ballet skills, anyways. 

The main reason for him to be there is the advice of his doctor. 

To explain it in easy terms and as people say online, bisexuals never sit right on their chairs, and Hendery is not the exception to that, which derived in a messed up state of his lumbar region that kept bothering him and threatened him with a serious injury. 

With his qualities, anyone would have chosen to do aerobic, swimming, or just any other type of exercise with strengthening his back implications, but being at the middle of the school year, almost every class available in his campus to use his student discount was booked. 

Everything but this class and the chess club. 

And, well, you may wonder what was the other reason that actually caused Hendery to not give up his discount and put on some slippers.

Xiao De Jun. 

Everytime he closed his eyes he saw feathers and pearls throwing shapes on the back of his lids. 

The first couple of times he saw him dance, he was compliant with the feel that sieged him and brushed it off, argumenting that it was the awe of watching a good performance, so it was natural to remember it with the sticky attraction linked to it. 

Nonetheless, his mind kept drifting and toying with the song, his eyes, his body… which eventually made the questions start popping in his mind, becoming an endless circle, one of them was why he couldn't stop going back to the memory Dejun gave him.

Usually, Hendery wasn't so prone to sneakily peek in pretty dancing boys and their private practise sessions, that was a creepy ass thing to do, in his opinion, but Dejun was so fucking breathtaking. 

So at the end, he signed up for his classes. And for Hendery's surprise, he was the only one to do so. 

"Like this?" He asked with a shaky breath, either for restrain or his dumb projections over his tutor. 

"No, you are too tense"

"I'm not tense" argued Hendery.

Dejun chuckled, and Hendery could swear that his giggle was light and airy when it fanned over his nape and made his hair bristle and his fists clench around the bar. 

"Jump already" 

"I can't"

"Guangheng, you are not going to break your ankle" said Dejun. In the mirror, the younger one could see his nose scrunching because of the smile that tugged from the corners of his lips. "This is not an audition, just try it out. Hands on first position and jump"

"Can you show me again?"

The instructor sighed, but nodded nonetheless, sluggishly withdrawing his hands from his student, making it seem almost reluctant, and stepping back a little so he could see his whole body in the mirror. 

"Look, I'll do it slowly for you" 

"Yes, I am looking" he answered, absent-minded. 

He was looking, indeed. 

He watched him move and fill the class with a musicless dance, flowing with a perfect facility as his feet slid over the wooden floor, his knees bent slightly and jumped up with his pointy feet, landing just as fragile as a feather. 

Hendery's mind fluttered around like a bee drunk on pollen. 

"Your turn" 

His chest jumped faintly, startled with the fact that his moment of distraction was over. 

Convincing himself of the need of following instructions to not look weirder than he already seemed, Hendery tried to do his best with the pose of his hands according to what Dejun had taught him about the first position and trying to imitate the perfect picture that the teacher's lesson composed. His feet traced a move over the floor, he bent his knees for impulse and with a deep breath, as Xiaojun had recommended, he jumped.

For a moment, he felt light as air, eyes on the mirror and deviating to the left where Dejun paid attention to his posture.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to distract while trying a new ballet movement with a fancy french name that Hendery had already forgotten, but it was worth the flash of his faint smile.

Of course, the consequence wasn't so pleasant, because everything that goes up has to come back down, and the younger screwed up the landing with a totally messy tud on the floor, accompanied by the loss of balance that made him stumble.

He found himself about to hit his knee on the floor, but Dejun had the time to catch him and avoid it. The blonde one quickly grabbed his arm and pulled up, whilst Hendery's reflexes sent his arms to lace around the dancer's hips. 

"Not bad, not bad" said the teacher, but Hendery's cheeks felt on fire and his eyes had to give a quick look at himself in the mirror to check that he wasn't turning any shade of red. 

He stood straight as soon as he could without looking hasty and even more clumsy. 

"It was terrible, right?" 

"Nah…"

Hendery looked at him sideways. He knew his jump wasn't anything near good but Dejun was trying to encourage his dedication with the exercise either way, so he felt a bit relieved. 

"Come on, I can take the criticism" he joked, not really giving a very deep importance to his disastrous _echappé sauté_ or whatever that was called. "It didn't look like the thing that you did, not in the slightest" 

"Well, of course it didn't, it was your first time and I have done this for fourteen years"

"Fourteen?" He asked, intrigued. 

If he wasn't crazy, Dejun had smirked slightly before he crunched and sat on the floor with a perfectly swift movement. 

He snapped his fingers and gestured to the floor in front of him.

"Stretch" 

Hendery sat down and tried to follow the stretching exercises that the teacher was doing, spreading his legs and leaning his torso towards his feet.

He hadn't noticed that the class had fled away so fast.

"That's a lot, gege"

"It's not, just descended until you feel your muscles get tense, but don't force it" 

"Fourteen years is a lot" corrected the youngest. 

Xiaojun chuckled, rolling his eyes a bit. 

"It's what it takes to complete two full cycles in a conservatory. Plus the years of basic learning before getting in" 

"So you have done this for all of your life, almost" 

"You can say that" he said, tilting his head a little. "I must really like it" 

Hendery didn't know if that was part of the stretching and he should follow that movement too, but he hesitated when the blonde accompanied it with a subtle bite of his lower lip and he froze in place. 

"It shows" he coughed, trying to undo the knot of his throat. 

"Do I look that old?" Teased the tutor, switching to do a pose rising his leg to his head that seemed impossible to Hendery. So much that he stared at him attentively but didn't even try to imitate it.

"No, but you are amazing" 

Xiaojun's leg almost dropped to the floor again, head snapping up with his eyes too big. 

"Uh?"

"An amazing dancer!" Hendery rushed to make a clarification, accentuating every word. "You are an amazing dancer"

As weeks passed and they got to know each other better, Hendery felt like he became a worse dunderhead around his teacher. 

He didn't expect to be the only one student to be there day after day, grabbing all of Xiaojun's available attention for himself, and of course, he wasn't planning the personal turn they had been taking in the recent days. 

They were just two boys spending hours alone in a room trying to get Hendery to correct his pose, and dancing was too emotionally filled up to just be indifferent, so it was a question of time.

Now, the thing was that everything felt strange for Hendery, in the kind of way that refers to the level of being used to being with a porcelain doll like Dejun. 

All the people that Hendery used to go for had been in the same lane. In his lane. Bubbly, cheerful, with his messy black hair and probably a messier head, the dark, oversized hoodies going, his scrapped knees and loud music blasting on his headphones. 

And Xiaojun was the only one that was running free from that form. Far from it, actually. 

And yet he was the one that made Hendery's heart feel the weakest. 

Being real, that was what staring at Dejun did to him. 

Dejun's smile made him unexpectedly heady, and his laugh was even more than that. It sounded musical and carefree at the same time, hooking Hendery from the first time he heard it, during the second week of class when he wore a pink hoodie and cracked a joke that he was getting into the Sugarplum Fairy's role. 

His barely noticeable touch when he tried to lead him to teach some moves made his brain switch off completely and, at some point along the third week of being around him, Hendery accepted he liked it too much. 

Thus, Hendery had been wondering whether he had been mistaken all the time giving those likes to Tinder profiles that only seemed too good but were nothing interesting. 

He had gone out with a few people that he had met and were promising to be life changing, interesting, mind blowing and all of that… but when it came to passion, they ignited less emotions on him than a boiled and unseasoned potato, and the first date was enough to know it wouldn't work out. 

"But you haven't seen me dance properly" argued the older one, keeping the other boy bound to reality even though he was wrong. Because a couple of times, Hendery had seen him dance to that orchestral music he didn’t even know about, with all those precious jumps and turns that made Dejun look like a legit king. "You only see me teach you the basics because your backbone is a feeble, half cooked spaghetti". 

"Hey!" Protested the brunette, taken by surprise with the friendly taunt of his instructor that, anyways, kept moving on to another exercise, doing the usual butterfly stretch that Hendery followed this time. "I'm trying to fix it, if you don't break me first"

"What did you even do to get such a hideous muscular injury?" 

"Oh, it was easy" he said, almost as if he was about to speak about a virtue of his. "The only thing I needed to do was sit on a chair and stress" 

"You should have been stressed for real then" commented the instructor, tone turning scaringly gentler. 

Scaringly gentle for Hendery. 

"I'm still stressed, maybe just a little less. But if you have known how it is to take a long dancing career you must know that exams can put you on the edge. The difference is that studying software engineering doesn't give you a strong back" 

Xiaojun chuckled. 

"Wow, I am not used to hear someone giving credit to the dancing career, if I'm completely honest" 

"Uh?" Blurted out Hendery, repeating the arm movements of his teacher to loosen up his muscles.

"You just said I should know stress because of my exams" he explained. In his eyes, there was a sincere glow that accompanied his story. "I do. Ballet is strict. There's an extensive training period, and becoming part of a professional company requires a lot of work. There's also a high risk of injuries for the strain on your feet… yet there's a lot of people out there that actually think it's not that hard to reach a life goal like that" 

"They think it's just dancing, right?" Asked Hendery, with a blue tone to his voice that made Xiaojun lips turn into a small smile. "I heard that before"

Dejun was so dorky on the outside when he tried to get Hendery to do exercises with a high requirement of flexibility that it was even more endearing to come across that bit of sensitivity inside him. 

"Yeah" he whispered softly "Luckily you can find someone that thinks differently from time to time"

Hendery knew that he was talking about him, but he lost the intuition to answer when the professor rolled on the floor until he was lying face down and then prompted himself on his arms, palms on the floor below his shoulders, until his torso was separated from the floor.

Maybe his face said it all about how astonished he was, because Xiaojun gave him a throaty laugh when he noticed it. 

"Do it, it'll help you gain strength"

The younger didn't have many doubts about the veracity of his words, but that wasn't the source of his stillness. It had more to do with the serpentine thought of Xiaojun and his flexible beauty unraveling in front of his eyes. 

The ballet pants adhered to his butt beautifully and the curve of his back could almost make his mouth water all alone. 

He shook his head and proceeded to go down, trying to imitate the posture in a correct way, even though his arms trembled more than Xiaojun's strengthened limbs. 

The dancer hovered over the floor until he was by Hendery's side, placing a hand on his lower back and pressing down to hold him in a correct position. 

Hendery felt like Xiaojun's fingertips were like the flame and his skin the candle, turning his nerves on whenever they entered in contact with him. 

He had always thought that having crushes was a bit of a bummer, because there wasn't only the high probability of the other one not having the same impression, but also the annoying, constant overthinking about how to approach them and make them think good things about you. 

It was unavoidable, all those chemical reactions inside a body that make your hands sweaty and your pupils dilated. Even if you try to convince yourself that everything is fine, you end up feeling light-headed like a child that's been spinning on a carrousel. 

Because it was an uncertain thing to know what the other person is thinking, just because somewhere among the line, you want the other to like you back. 

"Try to lift your hips from the floor too" 

"For fuck's sake, this is supposed to fix my back, not destroy it" whined Hendery, trying his best to function as he normally would without the additional knowledge of feelings jumping all over the place. 

"Hold it for a bit more… a bit more… and… okay, return to the previous position"

Hendery's forehead touched the floor again, enjoying the unknown bliss of laying down after trying to bend like a paper. 

Xiaojun's giggles still resounded over the classroom and dragged Hendery to laugh too. 

Doing exercise wasn't that horrible, after all, it happened to be entertaining and he was trying new things, so he was growing more fond of it. Yeah, Xiaojun's damp strands of blond fringe framing his face didn’t have anything to do with it, nor the lively tapping sound of his flats with his almost unconscious reviews of movements from the variation he was learning when he had moments to spare while Hendery tried to figure out how to hold a pose. 

"Now, if you turn around, hold your leg up keeping your knee straight"

"How?" Asked Hendery confused about the directions. 

He started by rolling on his back and laying face up, but his understanding of the position had ended there, so Xiaojun moved over him. 

And with over him, it was literally the meaning of over, with one feet at each side of his hips and looking down at his face in a way that made him glad of being laying down. 

Dejun eyes were really shiny, almost like one of those characters in the videogames Hendery played, with stars drawn in their eyes. Even his long lashes gave the impression of a supernatural view. 

The older’s hand creeped up on his thigh, hooking his fingers behind his knee, eliciting a chill running behind his neck. 

"Bend"

A part of him would admit that being there, like that, had something so relaxing and pleasing to it. 

He should open his darn mouth and ask Dejun if he wanted to go for coffee after the lesson, as he had been planning to do for days.

If he only articulated the three words of 'have you eaten?' to start that conversation, he would already sound like a meek, kind person. 

It wasn't even that deep. 

"Dejun-ge, hav-" 

The knock on the door overtook his moment and buried his chance on a ditch when it was immediately followed by the door swinging open comfortably, without waiting for an answer to reveal a pair of men waiting under the threshold. 

By the loose tops with leggings they were wearing and the wide bags they carried, Hendery could tell that they were also dancers. They had that nice figure that was even more clear than being hit with a slipper on the face. 

Hendery felt, honestly, a bit intimidated. 

If every man in the ballet picture looked like one of Michelangelo's angels like those two and things continued like that with Hendrry unable to invite him out, he would have to deal with a heartache. 

The tallest of them had short hair, a handsome face with sharp, pointy, charming eyes, fawn-like lashes and full lips.

By his side, the other one was noticeably shorter and had long floppy hair, boyish and dyed in black and blonde. 

"What are you doing?" Said the short one, amused, which made Dejun quickly move off from his spot, fixing his hair and acquiring a rosy tone on his cheeks.

Hendery followed him with his eyes dreamily. 

"Teaching"

"Yeah, but like… ever since we are friends you have run late to things just twice a year, is it today the best moment?" Completed the other. "Of all days" 

"Am I late!?" Exclaimed Xiaojun, going quickly to reach for his phone at one of the benches. 

Of course, Hendery reacted, getting up from the floor to stop looking like a wreck in front of two strangers that were, in fact, staring at him curiously. And probably it wasn't just because he was Xiaojun's only student in months, that was the less interesting thing to gossip about. 

For the other hand, finding them alone in that way and while his teacher apparently was breaking his character, may be a bit more thrilling for his friends. 

"I… should get going" commented Hendery, scratching the long hair at the back of his head and sitting on the bench to change his slippers for his sneakers. "I didn't realise I was making you run late, you must have things to do"

"Ah, yeah, I'm sorry to cut it up like this, Guangheng but I have an audition today"

"Oh…"

"Oh?" He chuckled, funny. "What's so surprising, boy?"

"Nothing, nothing" waved out Hendery. "I just didn't know you were trying for auditions, are you going to keep giving lessons if you pass?"

"Such enthusiasm for ballet" said one of the other dancers with a playful key to his tone. For the fall of his lashes, Hendery could tell that he was joking around. "What are you even teaching to the guy to keep him that hooked to classes?"

Despite the light giggle from the tallest of them, Xiaojun ignored the joke of his friends with a disturbing facility. 

"Nah, I'm not going to cancel the lessons, and you already paid me for three months, anyway, so if I were any ethic I'd give you the rest of classes, even if it has to be in my apartment"

With that sentence, both of Xiaojun's friends chuckled, making the worst attempt to conceal their amusement, wherever it came from. 

Hendery wasn't so simple to not know what the reason for those crossed arms and pressed lips looking to the floor was. 

Dejun just hit on him, so playful and coquettish. 

Of course, knowing the reason of the amusement didn't keep a soft panic to rush through Hendery's body and a bit of anticipation to cling onto him, glancing quickly from the boys behind Xiaojun to the dancer himself. 

He was a bit jumpy, as well. 

They both were probably thinking about the same elephant in the room with that half pleasant tingle of awkwardness. 

"What if we actually do the audition so you can see if you trick him into the personal tutoring?" Butted in the same boy that had talked before, hurrying Dejun up as he looked at the clock on his phone's screen. 

"Right" nodded the instructor, taking his bag and his jacket to follow them out of the classroom. "See you in two days"

"Break a leg!"

He smiled back at him, beaming wide once more before exiting the classroom. 

"Thanks!" 

***

That had been the first time someone had come in the classroom where he danced with Dejun besides them both, and also the first time they ever got interrupted. 

But it wouldn't be the last. 

However, by the time that happened, things between them had tensed like the strings of the violins that played Dejun's dance piece. 

He hadn’t gotten the role, neither had Ten, the smallest yet louder of his two friends. 

Sicheng, the third party of the triad, was the only one from them that got chosen. In fact, the man was picked to be one of the main dancers for the performance, occupying the King of the Fairy realm role that Dejun had long prepared for. 

But Hendery didn't know anything of that, he just saw the deep frown of his tutor when he came to class the evening they got their emails with the answers of their auditions and guessed there was something wrong with him. 

His tongue was still stuck on the question of inviting Dejun out for a drink, but any chance vanished from his mind when the dancer hit the button of the music player with an overly aggressive accent considering he always moved like a flower carried by the flow of rain during their lessons. 

He tossed his bag to the bench at the side, making the pink resin charms that hung from the zipper clatter against one of the mirrors dangerously. 

Usually, Dejun didn't play music in their classes because Hendery wasn't ready to learn choreography at all. Sometimes he played some songs during the stretching session to fill the silence, but this time was very different. 

It sounded ominous, almost upbeat, as if Dejun was about to morph into a blob of anger and black feathers. 

"Gege?" 

"Stretch" cut Dejun through, his voice slapping the younger one with a firmness that took him with all his guards down. 

"Is… is everything okay?" 

The stare of the older through the reflection of the mirror riveted in his eyes. 

_No_. But he didn’t say ut out loud. 

Well, there was something that Hendery wasn't able to refuse, so he bended an arm behind his head, with his elbow pointing to the ceiling so he would stretch his triceps like Dejun had taught him. Because Dejun looked blue and if Hendery knew something is that he didn't like how the gloom suited the dancer. 

Three and then six, the younger repeated the poses that he usually did with Dejun, but he did it alone, and at the ninth one, he turned around to stare at his absent teacher, sat on the bench with black leggings and a fuzzy woolen sweater with some colorful stripes, tying his pointes on place. 

He felt a jab of thrill traveling up to his chest, mixing up with the fright in front of the unknown, holding a breath when Dejun came closer to the mirror, held on the bar and rose himself on the very point of his feet. 

He did it a couple of times more, going up and back to his plants, trying to adjust the tightness of the shoes, maybe warming up his ankles, Hendery had no clue. 

"I can't… I don't…" he said, looking down to his own feet in his practically new ballet flats as he tried to understand how the anatomy of a feet would even allow a person to hold a position in the tips of their fragile fingers. "I can’t follow you on that"

For the first time on that day, maybe even in that week, Dejun let out a chuckle, edging irony in the sound. 

"I know" he sang with a silvery voice that slipped all over Hendery, across all the nooks and crannies of his skin. It was perhaps a foreshadow of the upcoming session, letting go of the bar to hold Hendery's wrists and pull the pupil with him to the middle of the practise room. "Don't try it, I don’t want you to break your instep in two" 

"What then?" Questioned Hendery without taking his eyes off his tutor's gracile steps back before he finally gave up and tried to show the slight frustration of his expression. 

"Stans on your tiptoes" he explained, letting go of him and making some room in between them despite the regret Hendery silently got from it. 

Little he knew. 

Hendery, obediently and yet hesitant, stood on his tiptoes like a kid that tries to reach the cookie jar in a high shelf. He refrained himself from holding the hem of his hoodie and fidget with it, looking up to Dejun. 

"Like this?" 

"Yes. Now put your arms like this, hold them as straight as you can" he said, showing the pose to the student that tried to mimic him as closely as he could. "Don't be stiff, relax a little" 

"Like this?" 

"Will do" offered Dejun, but Hendery still tried to perfection it a bit more with small changes. That day, for some reason, he felt like his back had nothing to do with the reasons for his motivation of nailing it. "Remember the lessons we did about spinning?" 

Hendery nodded, recalling the dizzy memory.

"How to forget that?" 

Dejun grinned again, seeming more vehement that time. Hendery still had to find one dumb joke that didn’t make the dancer smile even a bit, thought that one was certainly different for the tint of dusky playfulness.

"Good, now let's see if you can follow me this time. Keep your eyes on me..." he almost dared. ".. and try to repeat it, but on your tiptoes" 

At least Hendery had the excuse of being a pupil to blatantly swallow all of Dejun with his eyes, for he couldn't detach them from him.

It was as if a thick warm fluid was suddenly pumping adrenaline right through his blood stream, enough to make him tingle. 

One, two and three full turns on his point, and then he switched to a set of countless spins that alternated points with his feet on the floor. 

It was pretty insane to even try to replicate that as an amateur, and Hendery soon lost track of the series, but staring was enough to make his face feel hot. 

The dancer was so tactile that he wanted to look away and forget how craving something felt like. However, his mind was forcing him to keep focused on his legs and arms, repeating a goal that he had been trying to push down loud and louder.

Obviously, he couldn’t repeat any of that. 

Actually, Hendery highly doubted that anyone could, not in the same way and with the same results that Dejun got. 

The dancer held the ending pose gracefully for a couple of seconds, his breath heavy and his dark eyes stopped dead at his student, pupils blown out and hair falling in his eyes. 

There was a moment of silence. 

Never was Dejun the kind of teacher that demands an impossible level from the learner, he knew well what Hendery could and couldn't do.

However, the younger one was brave. 

"I need to see that again" 

"Sure" gasped Xiaojun, undoing his pose and fixing his blonde hair. "Pay more attention to me this time, look only at me"

"That should be easy" muttered the younger, inducing his tutor to reply with a sneer. "I can't even look away" 

"Am I that good?" Exhaled Dejun.

"So good, gege" he replied firmly even though still quietly. "That's what I learned the most here" 

The class soon turned intense. 

The music seemed to be thunderous, and the mirrors steamed up at the corners. 

Hendery could tell that something was making his teacher upset, maybe even frustrated, and that they weren't having an average class. 

For all that it seemed, Dejun needed to redeem himself, and Hendery silently indulged him. 

Half an hour into the class, he was already tired and the muscles on his thighs sore, but he didn't say a thing. And it's not like Hendery had a problem expressing his thoughts to others, but he quit the straightforwardness that day because he wouldn’t dare to ruin a moment like that with Dejun. 

He wasn't sure whether to blame himself for the uprising difficulty of keeping his shit together, or just accuse Xiaojun of it in the moment he took the hem of his fuzzy sweater and pulled it off revealing the certaily tight tank top. 

So that was how profesional danseurs looked like when practising, interesting. 

Hendery was no animal, he could stare at a pretty boy without having to constantly remind himself to stay in lane. That didn't erase the pace of his heart quickening when Dejun told him to put his hands on his hips, though. 

And for the record, Dejun was more than just pretty. 

He was stunning in the first place, and lovable to top it all, both things very present when the younger secured his hands on Dejun's hips and the latter stepped quite close to him, palms tracing the reverse of his pupil's hands to make sure he placed them correctly and firmly. 

When the teacher stood in his natural feet position, he was more petite than Hendery himself, but not so much. 

He was the perfect height for Hendery to kiss his forehead, but that would have been silly, right? 

Probably just as much as moving his hand to the small of Dejun's back, where it wasn't supposed to belong, but in for a penny, in for a pound. 

The teacher looked up to him without showing a trace of reproach in his bright eyes, shimmering like jewels. Hendery thought he could fit the entire milky way inside those eyes, that maybe it was already there. He could live in that universe, that was for sure. 

His first guess about why Dejun asked him to hold him was merely attributed to class reasons, but he started to doubt in the moment his throat dried because of Dejun moving closer to him, with his hands kneading Hendery's shoulders and his lips a bit parted to breath as much as he needed. 

Hendery blinked fast and tried to say something that could possibly make sense in that scenario and end up with him and his tutor hanging out for a coffee and maybe some arcade playing afterwards. 

"Dejun-ge, are you tired? You look tired" 

"Tired of what?" He replied with a sarcastic, breathy chuckle. "What should I be more tired of? The exercise? The lack of roles I have been given all these years? The taps on my back saying that at least I came this far? Not a decent salary whatsoever?" 

Hendery bit the inside of his cheek, not really knowing what to do with himself while the splendid boy he felt weak for had a breakdown right before his eyes. 

He wouldn’t have imagine the affliction he felt hearing Dejun sound so unhappy. He just wanted to put him in his pocket, take him home and make him a warm tea. 

"And Kun?" He continued, going about with names of people the younget didn’t know. "Well, I don’t want to go into that but I could do with less of his email answering ass. Shit, shit, shit"

"That must suck" he muttered, giving an ambivalent comfort phrase. 

Maybe he should hug him instead of giving useless pre-made sentences, but he didn't want to steal Dejun's space to breathe. 

"Yes, I'm tired" finally admitted the older, snuggling in with purpose. "So tired" 

His pretty eyelashes fanned whenever he blinked and Hendery couldn't help but be mesmerised, embedded on his face and the lovely caress of his breath over his lips as they both leaned in. 

Hendery swallowed down his reluctance, eyes closing slowly. The violins are still playing whichever ballet piece at the back of his mind, and Dejun's hands close on the material of his hood. 

It was then when the opening door adviced Hendery of his own actions once more. 

Dejun let go of him and pushed himself back. 

"And that’s how you hold a ballerina in a _Pas de deux_ " Hendery's eyes shot open, staring at his tutor speechless as the latter took a big breath, fanning himself with his hand and going to the bench wherr his bag was. "Good job, the class is over, you can stretch now" 

"Hey, Junnie" called the man at the door. 

He looked elegant and attractive, wearing a gray suit with a white shirt, a blue tie and the IDholder hanging from his neck with the identification from one of the many offices at the center of Beijing. 

"Hey, Kun, hi. Come in" he said, as if he wasn't breathing agitatedly or Hendery didn't stand still in the niddle of the class for a solid minute and with his heart beating like q tambourine. "It’s a surprise to see you here" 

"Ten texted saying you didn’t look your best after the results came out and I was concerned, are you okay?" 

Oh, of course, Dejun had a boyfriend.

Hendery should have expected that much from someone like him before he preppy company managet approached Dejun, put a hand on his hip and gently kissed his cheek.

"So… goodbye" he said quickly. "See you on Tuesday, I guess" 

"Good class, Guangheng"

"Yeah, whatever"

Before Dejun could crook his lips, Hendery fetched his black backpack and acidly pushed the door, thinking that he better get out of there before the pampers between the other two started kicking in and he had to get hunted at night by the image. 

It was only when Hendery had to stop at the edge of one of the grass patches of the University's garden, sit on his longboard and take off his slippers because he forgot to change his shoes with the hurry, when he understood what an 'email answering ass' was supposed to be. 

From the same rectangular window cut in the building's bricks in which he first saw Dejun dance, he was now seeing the interior of the practise room. 

There was the wooden bench where the dancer was sitting, also getting rid of his slippers as he spoke, and by his side, Kun. Even from afar, one could tell that the latter was paying more attention to his phone's screen and whatever he was typing than to his boyfriend's words. 

What a fucking fool, that was all the thoughts Hendery could form. Because not to be dramatic but who on Earth catches a man like Dejun and doesn’t kiss the floor he steps on? 

Hemdery would. 

He was more certain each day that he couldn’t let him go, especially after that whole 'duet performance'. 

The ballet tutor wasn't simple-minded either, so of course, his expressions changed for a colder, sadder one when he was done with his shoes and noticed that Kun wasn’t listening to him explain his concerns. 

Hendery sighed and rolled his eyes. 

"Sucker" he spat in between his teeth to no one in particular, stepping on his board and pushing himself away from the little frame of disgrace. 

***

Dejun gasps out loud, and if it wasn't for his grace in dance, Hendery would say he was about to trip for a split second when he knocked the door of the dance practice and slipped in at the middle of whichever variation his teacher was trying to get straight, going all around the room in circles, spinning and flying with those high jumps that appeared impossible to Hendery. 

Almost letting it crash on the floor, Dejun got a hold of the remote of the sound system and pressed pause. 

The older one pushed his hair in place, brushing it with his fingers and blowing some strands out of his vision field even though he was panting. 

"Hey, Guangheng, you are here" he gasped, trying to check the hour on his watch. He wasn't wearing one, but Hendery found his forgetful head as endearing as he usually did. "We don't have a class today, do we? It's Monday" 

"Yeah, no, I just came to talk to you" 

"Oh… oh" he articulated, scrunching his nose a little. "Sure. What do you want to talk about?"

"The pas de deux-ish moment the other" he said, gesturing with his hands widely to try to explain what a big ass mess that had been, for reasons. 

He had been thinking about it for the entire weekend, unable to move to another subject, and at this point he had to do a clean break because he had started thinking that the more he is around Dejun, the less he can go back. 

"Ah… yeah" Dejun nodded, but then, he buried his face on his palms and rubbed his eyes with a big inhale. "What's wrong with me, for fuck's sake. I'm sorry" 

Hendery lifted an eyebrow. He didn't expect to hear an out loud acceptance of regret, but there they were, and it stung like a bitch. 

"Yeah, so about that, don't worry, I'm quitting the classes, you can have yourself the three months fee, there's only a couple weeks left so..." 

"You what?" Asked Dejun before he could finish, apparently not believing what he heard. It was almost as if he despised the idea of parting from the boy that almost hit it off with him a few days ago. "You said you are quitting?"

"Yeah, I've understood that I went a bit over the line the other day" he expanded on. Dejun's expression turned calmer as the younger spoke, eyebrows going back to their position and lips curling a little. "Sorry, maybe I misread the signs, I kinda suck at that so… you don't really have to deal with me anymore, my friend Lucas is in the swimming team and he told me one kid broke his damn face when he tried out a trampoline jump so, yay, empty spot"

"You didn’t misread shit, Guangheng" stated the older, clearly. "Like, you can go ahead and swim if you want, but I… you know?" He asked, his long lashes batting like wings and a cheeky smile playing with his lips. "I really liked our piece". 

Hendery's lips are sealed for a second, finger raising by his face's side to figuratively point at the exact thought. 

"Kun" he simply said. "You are with him, no?"

Why did he even care so much about that? It wasn't his boyfriend, he didn't even pay all the attention that Dejun deserved to him. 

Perhaps Hendery just felt like he had to be the only one. 

"Well, yeah" simply answered Dejun with a shrug, beginning to slowly pace towards Hendery. 

The latter didn't move away. 

"Why on hell?" He finally asked, making the dancer stop on his tracks to look at him. 

He sighed. 

"Well, you know…" he did that universal hand gesture rubbing his thumb against his index and middle finger. 

Hendery cocked an eyebrow. This is not how he expected _anything_ to go down like when his doctor told him he needed to strengthen his lumbar area. 

"You've got a sugar daddy" he said, understanding out loud. 

"Don't get me wrong" purred Dejun as defense. "When we started dating, it wasn't like that. The flame died though. He is too busy with work to notice or fix it, but he is older than me, has his stable job that pays bills and I can't be bothered finding another flat I can afford making him hate me" 

Hendery tsked, diverting his sight to the side.

"A little bitchy of a move for a ballet dancer" he joked with a half bitter giggle. 

Nonetheless, he still sounded amused because who would have thought. 

Dejun tilted his head, hooding his eyes behind the thick fan of lashes as he gave a defiant glance to Hendery. 

He shortened the space that still separated them, snuggling against Hendery's chest and letting the younger surround him with his arms to hold his hips with his hands, exactly like they were doing last time. 

"Let's pick up where we left it" suggested the ballet dancer. 

Hendery wasn't wearing his slippers, nor the sort of comfortable clothes that someone chooses to practice a dance routine of any kind, just skinny black jeans and vans, but he knew Dejun wasn't speaking literally. 

"I recall you were holding on to my clothes" answered Hendery, letting his head lol to the side, spilling his soft hair over his eyes.

Dejun's hands softly kneaded over Hendery's shoulders, gripping the cotton material of yet another of the hoodies from the boy's wardrobe like he said, face drawing in closer to his. 

"Yeah, and I think you were about to kiss me" 

Hendery couldn't help his smile, heart beating fast as he angled his face down and pressed his lips against Dejun's own. They were so soft that they made Hendery weak on the knees, wondering how could he be so hung up on someone. 

To be fair, it wasn't only an average person, Dejun tasted the sweetest Hendery had ever tried, and even more when the older made a soft sound and parted his lips beneath his. 

As Hendery slipped his tongue past his cushions, he felt the jolt of surprise from the older coming in contact with a cold touch. 

"You have a…" mumbled Dejun, leaning away just enough to speak.

"Yeah" shortened out the younger, sticking his tongue a little and pushing the metal piece with his teeth. "I've a tongue piercing" 

Before he could say anything else, Dejun had already returned to his lips, licking into his mouth and over the cold metal bead. 

Hendery giggled, pulling him in closer. 

"Straight lift" he announced shirt before he wrapped his arms bellow Dejun's rib cage and pulled him up, carrying him across the room and spinning the older around in the air, provoking a clear, funny laugh. 

"Wait, wait" exclaimed the dancer, burying his hand on the pocket of his jacket and pulling out the remote to restart the music. "Better!" 

Hendery looked into his eyes, and so did Dejun, placing a hand behind his neck and falling softly on his lips once more. 

***

"I'm going to have to let you know that I'm broke too, baby" warned Hendery with a humorous tone, looking at himself in the mirror of his bathroom and trying to wipe off the glistening traces of Dejun's gloss on the corner of his lips. "And that I can’t spoil you like he does" 

Dejun -his lovely, sweet Dejun- wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his bare shoulder, looking at the picture of them together in the mirror, just like they always did from the beginning at the practise room. 

Doing it felt natural, more each day as the time passed. Reaching that point Hendery thought about it as his and Dejun's special, secret thing, and they even had a couple of pictures posing like this. 

But still, they couldn't see the light of day yet regardless of his imperious wish of bragging about Dejun with the whole world. 

"You weren't saying that before" he cooed with a cheeky smile that made Hendery roll his eyes amused. "You pampered me quite well"

"But I'm serious, Dejun" The dancer pouted, and then he pressed a mellow peck on his cheek, exhaling a balmy breath that lingered over Hendery's skin. "I like you, like straight up, for real"

"And I like you too"

"And that's great, but you know why I'm telling you this" 

"Dery, I don't only like you, I like your messy college dorm and having takeaway malatang on the floor while we watch Netflix. I know I'm too 'bitchy' for your cliché image of a ballet dancer" joked the older, putting some quotation marks with his fingers to make the whole conversation feel lighter despite what it was. "But I promise you I can live just fine in a less fancy flat" 

Hendery turned on his heels, lower back resting on the sink. 

He stared at the other man with glimmy eyes, and both knew why. Plus, Dejun looked exquisite with his messy hair and wearing Hendery's tee reaching to cover just to the middle of his thighs. 

"You're gonna break up with him?" 

Dejun sucked his lip, and then nodded slowly. 

"I have been thinking how to do it" 

"I understand. You have been dating for a long time, after all" 

"Don't get sad over this, please" begged the older, hearing the drop of Hendery's tone. "I told you already that he is the one that would go, not you. I just need to find an apartment. Either way Kun is already giving me suspicious eyes. I deserve them, though" 

"Yeah, like not to be judgemental but you cheated on him _a lot_ " 

"There's no such thing as cheating a lot or a little, you either do it or not, it's not a spectrum" said Dejun, arms crossed over his chest all cocksure. "You mustn't be so ashamed if you bit my neck that hard, it's difficult to cover up!"

"Ah, yeah?" Asked the younger rhetorically, leaping on Dejun swiftly and hugging his waist to ground him against his chest, face burying on the crook of his neck. "Want another mark now that we are at it?" 

Dejun screeched, laughing out loud and wrestling with Hendery for his dear life. 

It was easy to manhandle Dejun, as he was rather small, and the younger had also learned that the sweet-looking man also enjoyed with a little bit of tossing him around, so he easily locked him in between his arms. 

But to Dejun's surprise, when the younger gained territory, he only pressed a chaste kiss on a bare plain of skin and snuggled against him, inhaling the light scent that Dejun had to him and him only, light and clean like fresh sheets. 

The door of the bathroom was knocked boldly, startling both of them in the middle of whatever they were having. 

"Don't you two dare fuck in the room I use to shower!" Yelled Yangyang from the other side, making the couple explode with laughter. “It’s gross, okay!? I use the towels there and the walls are made of paper!”

"Use headphones!" Suggested Hendery.

"Fuck you and your ballerina, I'm not cleaning that tomorrow even if it's my turn" 

Yangyang grumbled and then his steps sounded as he went away, back to his room. 

"Don't choose a roommate like him" nagged Hendery. "He'd take you out of your mind" 

"Actually" began Dejun, eyes a bit low but corners of his lips curled up. "Ten knows about the situation right now, I told him during our practice so… he asked me if I wanted to stay with him for a while. What would you think about that?" 

"Ten is the tall elf or the sassy shortie?"

Dejun chuckled amused by the accuracy of the descriptions. 

"Sassy" 

"Cool, so if we are noisy he can scold us but I don’t have to worry that he beat our asses, that's a cool roomate" 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, if you are comfortable with him then go ahead! I mean… for me, having you all for me sounds like paradise"

"Okay, you are painting it quite good, I'll move out” said Dejun with a smile “But don't underestimate Ten’s temper…" 

Hendery giggled, not really caring about the others a lot. In his mind he only had the fact that Dejun was a step closer to be his and the galloping of his heart because of it. 

"Hey, Dejun" he called, still hugging his waist and using his position to tuck his chin on his shoulder. 

"Hm?"

"Are you tired?"

"Not as much as I used to be" replied the older, stealing the rest of Hendery’s heart with a swift swap. "But if you mean sleepy, yeah, a little. Why?" 

"You know? It's late..." 

"What are you suggesting?

"There's no such thing as the cheating spectrum, right? We already messed up" 

"Pretty much, yeah. So what?" 

"Stay the night" he finally said. 

The older turned to look at the other man face to face, eyes getting tender. 

Needless to say, they had never done that before, basically because Dejun already had a reserved place in another man's bed. 

Hendery held his hand, fingers lacing together, and raised it to his lips to press a gentle kiss on his knuckles. 

He hated that Dejun looked at him as if no one ever treated him so carefully every time he showed him a bit of love. He didn't deserve less than that, but at least now, Hendery could take the matters into hand. 

Still, he was scared of the answer he was waiting for. 

"I have a big practise with the stupid Ten tomorrow, and trying to mimic a dancing bird it's going to be exhausting" he murmured, so the younger's heart started to sink silently. Yet, Dejun returned to press his cheek on Hendery's shoulder and look up at him with his huge eyes that held galaxies into them, dazzling him. "Will you spoon me in my sleep?" 

The warmth spread on Hendery's chest, making him feel high. His dumb smile said that nuch. 

"If you want, yes"

"I want!" Happily said the older with a wide beam that showed his pointy teeth. "I want to sleep soundly. Cuddle me, maybe like that you’d give me luck with the next audition" 

Dejun opened his arms and basically showed grabby hands to the other, who responded with an equally bright grin and put his hands on the dancer's hips.

He was sure Dejun knew what he would say next. 

"Straight lift, bluebird!"

**Author's Note:**

> [ Twitter](https://twitter.com/leechailatten)  
> 


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